“Do you want to hold your sister?” Meredith asked.
Sister.
Aria approached tentatively. Meredith smiled and placed the newborn in Aria’s arms. She felt warm and smelled of powder. “She’s beautiful,” Aria whispered. Behind her, Hanna sighed with pleasure. Spencer and Emily made cooing noises. Mike looked flabbergasted.
“What are you going to name her?” Aria asked.
“We haven’t decided.” Meredith pursed her lips bashfully. “We thought you might like to help us choose.”
“Really?” Aria breathed, touched. Meredith nodded.
A nurse knocked on the door. “How are we all doing?” Aria gave the baby to the nurse, who pressed a stethoscope to her tiny chest.
“We should go,” Spencer said, giving Aria a hug. Hanna and Emily piled on, too. They used to do mass hugs like this back in sixth and seventh grades, especially after something huge had happened. Of course, there used to be a fifth girl in the mass hugs, but Aria decided not to dwell on Ali. She didn’t want her to ruin the moment.
After her friends disappeared through the double doors—Mike hand-in-hand with Hanna—Aria returned to the waiting room and slumped down on the couch nearest the TV. Predictably, the news was droning on about how Ali’s body still hadn’t been found in the wreckage in the Poconos. A reporter was interviewing a leather-faced woman in Kansas who’d started a Facebook group claiming that Ali was still alive. “Don’t you people think it’s strange you haven’t found even one of her teeth or bones in that fire?” the woman cackled, her eyes round and crazed. “Alison is alive. Mark my words.”
Aria stabbed at the remote to change the channel. There was no way Ali was still out there. She’d gone down with that house and that was that.
“Aria?” said a voice.
Aria looked up. “Oh,” she said weakly, rising to her feet. Her heart started to thump. “H-hi.”
Noel Kahn stood in the doorway, wearing a beat-up black T-shirt and effortlessly fitting jeans. Aria could smell his skin from across the room, a blend of soap and spices. They’d barely spoken since the Valentine’s Day dance, and Aria had figured things with him were ruined for good.
Noel crossed the room and sat down on one of the lumpy chairs. “Mike texted me about your sister. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Aria said. Her muscles seemed hardened in place, like clay after it had been fired.
A bunch of doctors in blue scrubs walked past the waiting room, their stethoscopes jostling against their chests. Noel stuck his finger into a tiny hole in the knee of his jeans. “I don’t know if this matters, but I didn’t kiss Courtney. Ali. Whoever she was. She kissed me.”
Aria nodded, a lump in her throat. As soon as Ali had made her motives clear, it was painfully obvious what had happened. Ali had been desperate to get Aria to the Poconos, not because she wanted to be friends with Aria but because she wanted all the girls together so she could kill them in one fell swoop.
“I know,” Aria answered, staring at the toy box in the corner of the waiting room. It was filled with dog-eared picture books, ugly, yarn-haired dolls, and mismatched Legos. “I’m really sorry. I should have trusted you.”
“I’ve missed you,” Noel said quietly.
Aria dared to look up. “I missed you, too.”
Ever so slowly, Noel rose from his chair and sat down next to her. “For the record, you’re the most beautiful, interesting person I’ve ever met. I’ve always thought that, even in seventh grade.”
“You liar.” Aria half smiled.
“I would never lie about something like that,” Noel said sternly.
And then he leaned forward and kissed her.
34
SPENCER HASTINGS’S BEAUTIFUL, IMPERFECT LIFE
Andrew Campbell picked up Spencer from the hospital in his Mini Cooper and drove her home. KYW news was running the same report about how the police still hadn’t found any evidence of Ali’s body in the rubble.
Spencer pressed her forehead to the window and shut her eyes.
Andrew pulled up to Spencer’s curb and shifted the Mini into park. “You okay?”
“I need a minute,” Spencer mumbled.
At first glance, her street was resplendent and picturesque, all the houses grand and impressive, all the yards fenced in and maintained, and all the driveways paved with bluestone or brick. But if Spencer looked closer, the imperfections were obvious. The Cavanaugh house had been dark since Jenna’s death, a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn. The oak where Toby’s tree house had once stood was now a rotted stump. The hole where Jenna’s body had been found was filled in with thick, black dirt. The Jenna shrine remained at the curb, so swollen that it encompassed some of the neighbor’s curb and yard. The Ali shrine, on the other hand, had been dismantled. Spencer had no idea what happened to all the photos and stuffed animals and candles—they’d disappeared overnight. No one wanted to memorialize Alison DiLaurentis anymore. She was no longer Rosewood’s blameless, beautiful darling.
Spencer stared at the big Victorian on the corner of the cul-de-sac. You’re Spencer, right? Ali had asked Spencer the day she’d sneaked into the DiLaurentis yard to steal Ali’s piece of the Time Capsule flag. Spencer had thought Ali was only pretending not to know who Spencer was…but she actually didn’t have a clue. Courtney had to learn everything about Ali’s life—fast.
Spencer could also see the dilapidated barn at the back of her house, forever ruined by the fire Ali had started. I tried to burn you. I tried to have you arrested. And now, here we are. The night Ali went missing, when Spencer and Ali got in that awful fight, the Ali she knew stormed out, probably on her way to meet Ian. The real Ali, the one whose life had been stolen, was waiting for her.